An Attempt at Comic Relief

As a team in Tegucigalpa we headed to Hospital Escuela, or the free hospital. It was your typical hospital scene in the sense of doctors and nurses running around, the lovely smells, and a woman and her child walking up to you asking for ten dollars in the lobby.

I had little Mario with me. He is one of the five brothers we had with us and is one of the cutest kids I've ever seen. Mario tugged on my arm and said he had to go to the bano ironically so did I.

So I found Ashley, our group leader, and asked her where I could find a bathroom. She gave me a random point so I started in that direction. Her point led me to some other ward- so the help desk Mario and I go.

Mario asked for us where the bathroom was and yet again we were answered with a point.

Off we went.

I couldn't read any of the signs in this place because the words were so different and unrecognizable. (Didn't I study "words to be found in a hospital" in Spanish III?) Anyways, I finally see the palabra "Damas." I recognize this word as a term for woman and I peek inside the already opened door to confirm that yes it is a woman's bathroom.

No luck for us Hombres.

Mario is literally going to pee himself I think. As he starts doing that hop and grab thing little kids do when they "really gotta go."

I decide to find Ashley.

Ashley was with some other children singing so I come in mid song and ask her where the bathroom is again. I told her I found the Damas and she said "Just go use it. Noone in here cares if you use the girls bathroom."

Um-hmm.

To the Bano de Damas we go.

I was nervous. This may have been the first time I conscientiously walked into a ladies bathroom.

The time has come. I walk in.

And immediately realize none of the stalls have doors. (searching for words to describe thoughts....)

Awkward. Confusing. Finally hit me I was in Honduras.

Let's not forget little Mario is still by my side.

Not ten seconds am I in this foreign place (a pun?) and I am grabbed by who I think was a mother. (pause for visual from mother's perspective- naive white American boy who doesn't speak Spanish well walking into the first bathroom he sees with probably her daughter in the bathroom...play) She quickly pulls me out and starts saying "No, no, no, no, no...(and on)." Shaking her finger. I am glad "no" is an universal word.

I then proceeded to fill my stereotype of myself to her by asking her where the "damOs" bathroom was. (for the spanish impaired- there is no such thing as damos...i just attempted to make damas a masculine word by adding an O and hoping for the best.) My best was not enough as it turns out there is no such word. The woman chuckled. Now I know why.

In the end the kind, motherly woman led me and my tag along amigo to our bathroom- the one without a sign- right around the hall- about 20 feet away. We did our business and walked again, tall and proud men, Mario and I.

When looking for a bathroom in Honduras, and you're male, the word your looking for is "caballeros."